


elijah

by whatitis



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: But This Ship Is Real, Carlos is Autistic, Fluff, M/M, Time Is Fake, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7557517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatitis/pseuds/whatitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Night Vale tends to take its toll on those who live there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	elijah

**Author's Note:**

> this was a request for my wonderful co-mod, fi. the prompt was "blanket".

Some days Carlos came home smiling.

Some days Carlos came home annoyed.

Some days Carlos came home unresponsively over-exhausted, hands greasy and filmy with some unknown scientific substance, eyes wide with the secrets of time that only he could see in his own Carlos-way, mumbling something about byproducts and brownstone and beings that cannot legally be called angels, and these were the days he would collapse into the couch until physically moved or the city-mandated rerun of Donovan’s Reef came on at eight PM, or nine PM, or never, as time was highly weird in Night Vale, and the City Council could not be expected to study their sundials every night for all the right times, I mean, come _on._

Wholly uncoincidentally, these were the days Cecil decided to make dinner.

He wasn’t a great cook (his talents were more suited to hammering coffee with his coffee-hammer), but years (decades? centuries?) of living alone had given him remarkable skill with a stove and most conventional vegetables, excepting, of course, radishes, because he happened to be allergic to them and the venom found in their trifecta of venom-sacs. He was, naturally, not as good a cook as his darling boyfriend, but nobody was. Well, perhaps Earl was, but Earl had enough issues as it stood, and Tourniquet was booked until January of 1996, which is the sign of a truly good restaurant. Even if they could get a table, Carlos was in one of those moods where too many people got him upset, and Tourniquet was always packed…

“Oh, damn it.”

Lost in thought, Cecil had ignored the simmering saucepan of kale on the stove, leaving it to burn quietly while he considered Earl Harlan and radishes. Wistfully, he prodded the remaining leaves with a plastic spatula as the significant smell of burnt kale permeated the house, causing the Faceless Old Woman to wrinkle her nonexistent nose in disgust, hiding amongst the racks of cranberry sauce and unopened mayonnaise in the pantry. Cecil also wrinkled his nose, unconsciously mirroring a gesture he was never aware took place. 

Within the following few minutes, he delicately scooped out two portions of slightly-charred kale onto two paper plates, along with a serving of Easy Mac (“Easy Mac: So Easy, You Can’t Not Make It! Don’t Believe Us? Check Your Microwave! See What Ancient Sins Your Hands Have Committed!”) on each. He wasn’t sure if Carlos had eaten at work, but even if he had, he always came home hungry. Cecil did, too, but he had less of an excuse, as his job involved sitting at a desk and talking, as opposed to the strain put on a scientist’s body on the daily.

Quietly, he carried the two plates into the living room, trying to walk softly but noticeably, both being notably difficult with a shag carpet.

“Carlos?”

The scientist in question was sitting on the couch, hands positioned on his knees, a grim look on his typically gentle face. His nails were caked with blood and red clay, only unusual in the fact that there wasn’t a whole lot of red clay in their beloved desert, and even if there was, it is associated with very little bleeding as opposed to most conventional sands, which can hold up to a gallon of blood per five pounds of sand. Carlos knew this, and he still was unsure of how the red clay got there. His hands hurt, but a kind of dull ache, like an old wound that he didn’t remember getting.

Carlos did not remember many things. This did not alarm him as much as it used to, but it still unsettled him to the point of pure catatonia, as opposed to Super Catatonia, which he experienced for more or less his entire first year on the Night Vale project. Missing memories, events that didn’t add up...rather frightening for an interloper, even if said interloper was used to it. This being so, it took him a few moments to notice that Cecil had entered the room, and a few more to formulate a response.

“Cecil,” he started, “I think I’ve angered the mountains.” Nervously, he wiped his hands on his pants legs, leaving streaks of bright red clay. 

“Don’t say things like that; it’s illegal. Here, I made dinner--”

“Not hungry.”

“Carlos.” There was a lot of meaning to that singular word, layers of perceived condescension and intended concern that only served to agitate Carlos further. “Carlos, you have to eat.”

“I know. Cec, I’m serious; I think something bad happened but I can’t remember what,” he said, in a tone that carried both weariness and accusation directed at nobody. These were emotions he felt often, too often. These were emotions Cecil felt often, as well, but neither of them believed that the other did, so neither of them vocalized their collective discontent.

“That happens, Carlos. This is--”

“I know, this is Night Vale, things like this happen. I don’t care. It’s scary, even if it happens every day of every week, and I don’t like it, okay?” Having finished methodically laying his emotions bare, Carlos stood, before his wobbly legs betrayed him into sitting down again hardly a second before he got up. In his mind, he may have never stood at all, as causation tended to skip around for him like someone changing channels. He tried standing up again, and the door to the kitchen slammed shut, making them both flinch hard.

“Sorry,” the Faceless Old Woman said from behind the suddenly closed door.

“Dammit. Dammit!” Carlos rubbed his temples, resigning himself to stay seated. 

“I said sorry, Carlos.”

“I know, sorry for snapping.”

“That’s alright.” There was a noise like suffocating mice from behind the door, and Cecil nervously sat down, hoping the Faceless Old Woman would stop her cooking so that Carlos could have some quiet. Slowly, softly, Cecil rested his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, unintentionally mimicking a gesture from the night they first accepted themselves for who they were. Slowly, softly, Carlos put his hand on his boyfriend’s knee, intentionally mimicking a gesture from the night he first accepted Night Vale for what it was. 

Carlos trailed out unknown patterns and meaningless equations with his index finger on Cecil’s leg, one of his several so-called stupid compulsions, though Cecil never minded and both of them knew it. Eventually, his eyes wandered to the television, trying to internally assess whether or not that much visual stimuli would ruin his mood even more.

“Cec, what time is Donovan’s Reef tonight?” he asked, knowing that his boyfriend would be more in the know on these kinds of things.

“Nine...thirty-seven, I think? I don’t know.”

And then, simultaneously: “Time is weird.” 

Cecil moved to get the remote from its far-off perch on the end-table, but was stopped by Carlos’ gentle hand squeezing his knee. 

“I don’t think I want to watch it; I was just wondering,” he explained, his voice softening to a whisper. “If you could grab the blanket, though, that’d be absolutely great.”

With a flourishing hand wave of recognition, Cecil reached out to grab the beat-up flannel blanket that they used for warming up, calming down, and putting out small fires. In this case, it was more of a calming down incident, though it was good to have it out in case the Faceless Old Woman decided to torch their house, as she sometimes did. With little ceremony, he draped it over his boyfriend, who then made all the meticulous adjustments that having a blanket requires. When he was done, only the front of his face stuck out, along with a few stray hairs that he blew out of the way.

“If there’s one thing to be said for this place, it’s that I’m only going grayer.” Carlos laughed, and Cecil joined in, albeit uncertainly. It was hard to tell when Carlos was making a joke and when he was stating a fact, but it often didn’t matter, as the two blended together in his mind into one inscrutable mass of chattering. “I mean, really. I’m gonna be a silver fox by the time I hit fifty.” Neither of them laughed, as neither of them were quite sure when that would be.

“Time is weird,” they said again, and Carlos shifted anxiously under the blanket, unsure of how to apologize for the way that he could get when he was stressed in this way. He opened his mouth and shut it again a few times in rapid succession, like a goldfish breathing oxygen and nitrogen and the other trace elements that make up the Earth’s atmosphere. Cecil smiled at him, returning to his previous position of leaning on his boyfriend.

“Tell me about your day,” Carlos said in place of all the other things he wanted to say, and as soon as Cecil opened his mouth, he was wholly and completely asleep.

The radio host smiled, leaning over the extra few inches to kiss his forehead. He knew this would happen, as he knew so many other things would happen, both in theory and in practice. He was used to it, and so as he himself drifted off into the temporary death of slumber, he solely hoped that Carlos would sleep tight.

**Author's Note:**

> this is roughly after condos but before parade day. i'm sorry if my cecil is ooc bc i'm not great at writing him. carlos is autistic. thank you for your time.


End file.
